Ezafe as a linking feature within DP

Abstract

Studies on Ezafe demonstrate that it displays considerable cross-linguistic variation, making it difficult to propose a unified analysis. Our goal is to achieve such unification by investigating the properties of Ezafe in two typologically different languages; Northern Kurdish/Kurmanji Kurdish (Iranian) and Turkish (Turkic). Taking Ezafe as a linking feature that marks dependency between the head and the non-head elements within the nominal domain, we propose that the variation can be explained with the head directionality of the language and the phase domain where the head noun lands in/remains. This allows us to account for data that were problematic for previous accounts and to extend the range of data to languages (specifically, Turkish) that have not been analyzed as Ezafe languages before.